Disturbing Night At The Movies: The 25 Most Upsetting Movies Of All Time
Disturbing Night At The Movies:” The Ultimate List of Dangerous Films (or How I Misspent My Youth Watching Slashers, Sickos, and Psychos Instead of Reading Shakespeare)
One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.-Klaus Kinski, disturbing actor, target of Werner Herzog murder plot
Please Do Not Read This Article If You Are Under The Age of 25.
Introduction: Q: Are We Not Men? A: No, We Are Disturbed
There is a whole underground army of moviegoers out there, scouring the internet for undiscovered treasures, rifling through what is left of sketchy video stores, prying open dark vaults to find the dusty reels of forgotten anti-masterpieces… They are out there. Believe me. Are these modern day media Magellans the masses of American porn addicts? Nope. Why, those guys, the purveyors of pornography, comprising roughly 97.9% of the male population – your average congressmen, errant school crossing-guards, devilish deans of divinity schools, Benedictine monks (by day), would-be sexual superheroes, aging English poets, telescope builders – those sad bastards ( among them you and I for sure), perpetually on the lookout for pee-pee videos, or forbidden librarian groping, or bi-racial ribaldry – are practically king specimens of healthy-mindedness compared to the gang of freaks I’m talking about.
The cinematic warriors of whom I speak – constantly fighting normal moral conventions, the prodding of their own consciences, and the eternal “tsk-tsking” of the world at large – are the “Disturbists:” cinephiles devoted to the most disgusting, terrifying, upsetting, gory, profane, irreverent movies ever made: the Canon of Disturbing Cinema. Most often falling into the category of the horror genre, but also encompassing the more despicable and offensive variations of comedy, drama, historical period piece, documentary, Japanese anime, erotic cartoon, or instructional video, the Disturbing Film can be defined thusly:
dis·turb·ing film (n.) Pron. \di-ˈstərb-biŋ\ ˈfilm\ Etym. derived from the Latinate verb disturbare (to make slightly nauseous); Middle English variants incl. disturben; & contemporary American colloquialisms originating circa 1962 in the Times Square area of New York City: cf. “grindhouse,” “sleaze,” “gross-out,” “freaky stuff,” “sick flick,” “you’re not gonna believe what I watched last night.”
- A motion picture that portrays all manner of inappropriate, untoward, and naughty behavior, aesthetically realized viz. a viz. graphic images of sexuality and/or violent crimes perpetrated by maniacs, escapees, mad scientists, ridiculed summer-camp attendees bent on revenge, and other suspicious and unsavory characters.
- A work of cinema that is transgressive for the express purpose of providing its viewers titillation and amusement; typically NOT primarily intended to educate or enrich its audience in any way whatsoever, in fact usually avoidant of any socially redeeming quality. There are exceptions, however.
- A filmed artistic manifesto that exploits its sensitive subject matter for the basest of reasons (money, infamy, and money) and indulges in human and supernatural depravity for its own sake.
- A cultural artifact emphasizing the unpleasant. Typically shared and disseminated among suburban teenagers, prison inmates, comic-book store owners, and middle-aged loners named Doug who hold puppet talk shows in the basement when no one else is around.
Now, it should be noted that the Disturbing Film certainly may, and probably does, contain other ingredients of depravity – most frequently sex and madness, or the many combinations and permutations thereof: necrophilia, sadism, masochism, cannibalism (either of the sexually arousing variety or just as a nutritive choice), frotteurism (undue rubbing up against strangers in subways or other modes of public transportation), zoophilia, pederasty, masturbation, auto-erotic asphyxiation, coprophilia (abnormal affection toward fecal matter), voyeurism (and other modes of Peeping Tom-ism including severe leaf-peeping), vampirism, emetophilia (vomit lovers), telephonic scatologia (use of obscenity during phone calls), blennophilia (slime games), celluloidophilia (making humping motions against physical objects like film reels, cushioned armrests, or projectors), supra-terrestrialophila (sexual arousal by alien species, whether real or imagined, such as ETs, Venutians, or replicants), assorted obscure fetishisms involving Corinthian leather, upholstery, imitation leather, paper-mache, sand paper ( and Krazy glue), infantilism, cyberphilia, your standard grab-bag of obscure para-philias including syphilophilia (syphilis admirers) and nyctohylophilia (obsession with forests at night), exhibitionism, “pinballs” (covert leaning against arcade games), urophilia, auto-erotic crucifixion (getting off while redeeming humanity), snot cabaret, German Filth Parades, Beatlemania, memorabiliaphilia (erotic delight related to collector’s items), para-psychophilia (physical manifestations – strange creatures, second heads, alter egos, demonic children – of repressed psychological states such as rage or lust), and general all out irreverence; all of these predilections and many others too numerous to mention make their way into the witch’s brew of vaunted elements that composes the mythic, elusive game hunted by perverted film fans: the truly Disturbing Film.
So open the curtain, grab the barf bag, and hang on tight, all you novices and apprentice Disturbists… What follows is a guide to your entry and introduction to the Multiplex of the Deranged; that broken down, abandoned, condemned, movie house on the top of the hill into which only the most intrepid kids (at heart) will venture.
Welcome to the old curiosity shop of horrors…
The List of the 25 Most Disturbing Movies Currently In Existence
Producing this list was not a task that could be left to human error or flimsy subjective judgment. It was primarily a scientific endeavor. Several weighted criteria were used, using an obscure logarithm, and fed into a huge macro-computer the size of a refrigerator, which shook, rattled, made a burping sound, and then produced through a small slot like that in an ATM machine a printout similar to a grocery receipt on which the following list of 25 films was printed. The criteria, in descending order of importance, were: does this movie make me want to throw up? Do I feel like a worse person having watched this drivel? Do I feel significantly less optimistic about human nature have been subjected to it? Also counted: level of feigned or sincere ignorance of good taste.
Also, all entries are followed by a scaled rating expressed in a ratio of UpChuck Factor to Artistic Merit.
UpChuck/Artstic Merit Gauge-O-Meter®
25. Cutting Moments (Short Film) (1997) 6/8 This nasty bit of business is a good way to dip your feet in the water. It’s short, only about 20 minutes, and can be found on You Tube or DVD, so you can take this entrance exam pretty conveniently. However, it’s an excruciating 20 minutes, and a wonderfully effective, darkly hilarious deadpan look at clinical depression as a modern way of life and the sorry state of modern familial relationships. In a series of bizarre low-key scenes, we witness a husband bored with his life, afraid of his son’s homosexuality (expressed via Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!) a wife bored with her husband, and everyone bored with the universe. In other words, a family so numb, so emotionally catatonic, that the woman of the house tries to reach her husband and break the psychological stagnation by voicing a very strange and painful cry of help. Her solution involves a pair of scissors, a bathroom mirror, and some daring-do… And the best part is hubby’s unexpected reaction. During the finale, try not to close your eyes or put your hands in front of your face. If you have to, you may need to stop right here and venture no further down the list.
24. Men Behind The Sun (1987) 5/9
Well, if you have made it this far – and that last one should leave you reeling a bit – then you’re ready to start taking on the big boys. This unflinching chronicle of the notorious Japanese WWII biological weapons experimentation camp (never fun places) Unit 731 usually finds its way into many a Disturbist’s Top Ten. I don’t rank it quite that high, but there’s a very good argument to be had in favor of such an opinion. Like Mengele did for the Nazis, the “doctors” and biological inventors at 731 used inmates to conduct the kind of pointless and creatively disgusting experiments only insane concentration camp docs seem capable of; among the sights you’ll gain admission to with this one are: a male test subject put into some kind of pressurized air chamber, in which his entire gastrointestinal track is forced out of the first body cavity intestines usually look for it they wanted to make a break for it; and a poor old woman’s hands made completely frostbitten in the camp’s wintry surroundings until they are frozen like a popsicle, whereupon she is forced to dip them in boiling hot water with really unfortunate results (think in terms of that choice drumstick everyone wants at Thanksgiving, the one with meat just falling off the bone).
But the worst is a really morally dubious scene of a mortified cat dropped into a cage of starving rats, which, although no one knows for sure, is probably authentic and rightfully brought the filmmaker condemnation from animal rights activists and legal problems (whoa, is it hard to sit through). There is an autopsy of a young boy that may be real too. In any case, the innovative torture methods depicted make this an instant unsavory classic. And most of it really happened. Director Mou Tun Fei initially began working on an earnest attempt to convey the tragedies of 731, but soon descended into rank exploitation. As a result, he became vilified and investigated in his home country of China; he also received death threats. Anything for art.
23. Possession (1981) 10/6
Well, if you survived our first two items, it’s time to earn a few more stripes. Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani star as an estranged couple living in Berlin in this rare and hard-to-find film (sometimes having to track down these buried treasures is half the fun). This one is way, way out there – and does a superb job of going into uncharted, genre-bending territory, far beyond your average, conventional narrative. Part intense and excruciating family melodrama, part psychological nightmare, and part monster movie, Possession is an example of many disparate factors coming together in an unexpected, category-defying way that produces something exceptional, and exceptionally bizarre.
In a story of emotional intensity worthy of Bergman, Mark (Neill) and Anna (Adjani) are suffering perhaps the worst, most raw form of alienation – that within a disintegrating marriage. In their case, though, the turmoil is elevated to acute hysteria, and then morphs in surreal ways that David Lynch would be proud of. Mark suspects the unbalanced Anna of having an affair, and when she moves out, he starts poking around. I won’t give away what he discovers – but let’s just say Anna’s “lover” is the last thing Mark could have imagined… and it will freak you out. Is it a physical embodiment of her tortured psyche (a la David Cronenberg)? Is it human? In the words of Bill Murray and Steve Martin: “what the hell is that thing, anyway?”
Possession, like Rosemary’s Baby or Silence of the Lambs, applies first-class performances, cinematography, screenwriting, and direction to a genre unfortunately too often known for its legions of B-movie schlock. It represents a rare breed – the art-house horror film – and operates on enough metaphorical and psychological levels to keep you deep in discussion and thought long after viewing.
22. Maniac (1981) 6/9
Pretty much everything Joe Spinell graces with his mug instantly ups its sleaze quotient by fifty percent. An actor who has been around from the early seventies, and has had small parts in big films (including The Godfather and Rocky), Spinell possesses greasy hair, sweaty pockmarked face, and the glare of a psychopath (in basically every role he plays) that makes you think, ‘hey, this guy should star in a movie called “Maniac!” Well, a dream came true, and as a director with a vision, this is Spinell’s moment in the spotlight. He plays a New York loner with a mother complex who spends most of his time barricaded in his shabby apartment and majorly creeping us out by looking into a fish eye lens and playing with mannequins. When he does manage to get out for an evening, it’s usually to stalk and scalp women in the empty subways and dark corners of The Big Apple.
The special effects by Tom Savini, a master before CGI was a gleam in George Lucas’s eye, supply a cavalcade of memorable images, including a shotgun ambush of two lovers in a car and an exploding head that in its ferocity still holds up today. By the end of the film, when Spinell is locked in his apartment, suffering a paranoid breakdown, hearing voices, and skinning his victims, we’ve travelled about as far down the rabbit hole of urban dementia and alienation anyone would care to go. Compared to this, Taxi Driver is like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
It captures a foreboding and decaying NY, just before it began the long journey from graffitied wasteland to the current Disneyland paradise. Although Joe would go on to helm The Last Horror Film (with Golden Voyage of Sinbad’s Caroline Munro as a lesbian fashion photographer – I can practically hear it being added to your GreenCine queues now) and other low budget schlock, he never reached again this pinnacle; the titular character of Maniac is to Spinell what Hamlet was to Larry Olivier – the role he was born to play. Bonus: has one of the best posters in horror movie history. Just seeing it on plastered on subway walls of when I was a kid gave me the chills, especially the tag line rendered in psycho scrawl underneath a man wearing jeans and holding a knife in one hand and a blonde woman’s head in the other: “I warned you not to go out tonight.’ You’ll need a long shower after this one.
Coming Up: Possession, Canadian Entrails, and Spankwire
Short URL: http://www.somebodyhitthelights.com/?p=128
Posted by Lights! Editorial Staff
on Feb 23 2010 Filed under Our Feature Presentation, The Bloody Axe.
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